Parents
by Stromboli
Summary: Tokka Week Prompt: Parents. Sokka and Toph talk after she has a bad visit from her mother.


_A fic for day two of Tokka Week. Prompt: Parents._

_I don't know why I enjoy writing about Toph struggling with adult life. I think I might be projecting just a tiny bit._

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Parents  
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Toph's apartment was dark by the time Sokka got there, following a particularly long and dull council session. It wasn't unusual. Toph rarely bothered to turn on the lights after she'd put Lin to bed. Sokka knocked and tried to open the door, only to find it locked. That was odd. Toph hardly ever locked her door when she was home, waving off her friends concern under the notion that no one with half a brain would try to break in on the greatest earthbender in the world. Being the chief of police didn't hurt, either.

_Maybe she's already gone to bed_, Sokka thought, a little disappointed. He knocked again and called, "Toph? You here?" Getting no answer, Sokka was about to leave when the lock clicked from inside. He smiled and opened the door.

"Hey, Toph, I was wondering if–" Sokka stopped short when he flicked the lights on. Toph was leaning back in her chair, her feet propped up on the table. Her hair had fallen out of its usual bun and hung limp and bedraggled down her back. Her arms, face, and shirt were smeared with mud – as was much of the apartment. As Sokka's silence stretched, Toph smiled sardonically.

"Wow," she said with a bitter edge in her voice. "I managed to shut you up for almost a minute. I must really look like hell." She blew her bangs out of her face and took a swig from a glass of dark amber liquid. The bottle on the table in front of her looked conspicuously empty.

"Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to go out for drinks," Sokka said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. "But I can see you're a bit ahead of me." He picked up the bottle and gave it a sniff. Toph laughed as Sokka began to cough, his eyes watering. "What is that?" he choked.

"They call it 'Rock Polish,'" she said, swirling the dark beverage in her glass. Sokka set the bottle down gingerly.

"I'm not sure that's supposed to be a drink. I think it might actually be rock polish. It's definitely not fit for human consumption." Toph chuckled again and shook her head, but the smile was quickly fading. Sokka examined the muddy little handprints all over the walls. "Rough day?"

Toph shrugged, taking another sip of her drink. Lin was deep into her "terrible twos," and large scale messes were becoming a regular occurrence in the Bei Fong household. Still, this was the kind of thing that Toph usually took in stride. Sokka very much doubted that the mud was what drove his friend to drink this evening.

"If I ask, will you tell me?"

"Probably not."

The chief and the councilman sat in silence for a while. It wasn't until a soft cry came from Lin's room that they stirred. Sokka spun round to look at the hall, and Toph sat up at once, putting her feet on the ground.

"Should I–?"

"Nah. She's fine," said Toph, relaxing again. "Just dreaming." They were in danger of lapsing into silence again when Toph added, "My mother came to visit today." She downed the rest of her drink and reached for the bottle, but Sokka caught her hand.

"And?"

"And you can guess how it went," she snapped, pulling out of his grip to wave at the mess surrounding them. With a scowl, she leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest.

Sokka sighed. In the years following the war, Toph had tried to repair her relationship with her parents. She had even moved back to Gaoling for a while. Nothing had changed, however. No number of honors and commendations could change her parents' view of her. To Lao and Poppy Bei Fong, Toph was always going to be their delicate little girl, and she hated it.

"I forgot she was even supposed to be coming today," she groaned. "Lin was being fussy, I hadn't even managed to get her a bath yet, and my mother just comes waltzing in."

Sokka hummed sympathetically. "The usual issues?"

"Yep. All I did was offer to make her some tea, and she starts going on that it was disgraceful that I should have to my own cooking, and I shouldn't be living in a dumpy little apartment, blah, blah, blah." Toph blew at her bangs again and rubbed her face, her fingers leaving tracks in the dirt. "We really started going at it when she said I needed to stop playing at being a cop and find a husband. She told me that even being thirty-five and having Lin, it wasn't too late for me to find a good man. Anyway, I lost track of Lin while we were arguing. Somehow she managed to get out to the garden and…"

"And decided to take up interior decorating?"

Toph grinned. "Oh, every inch of her was covered in mud._ I_ thought it was funny. But Mom seemed like she was about to have a heart attack." Suddenly, Toph's expression darkened, and she groped once more for the bottle. Sokka moved to sit on the edge of the table and took her hand in his again. This time, she didn't pull away.

"Then what?" he asked.

"She said… she couldn't stand seeing her granddaughter raised like a little troll." Anger made her voice waver, and Sokka gave her hand a little squeeze. "She told me to let her take Lin to Gaoling. And she said if I didn't, she'd go to the city for custody of her."

Sokka's eyebrows furrowed. "She didn't."

"Yep," Toph said with a heavy sigh.

"Toph, you don't honestly think any of your officers would brook a custody complaint against you. They know you, and they know Lin. Your mother has no grounds–"

"_Legally_, no."

"What do you mean?"

Toph turned her face away from him and said slowly, "I mean, maybe I should've let Lin go to Gaoling." She overrode Sokka's immediate objection, adding, "She could be safe and cared for all of the time. This city is dangerous, Sokka. I know that better than most. And I spend all my time working. I'm all she's got, and I'm never here for her. So maybe– maybe she'd be better off…" Toph slumped in her chair, covering her face with her free hand. Then she forced a weak smile.

"I'm really bad at this parenting thing, huh?"

"No. You're not." The sudden sharpness in Sokka's voice surprised her. He cupped her cheek in his hand, making her face him. "And I'm not taking any of this self-pity from you, either. You're _Toph Bei Fong_. When you meet a wall, you don't give up. You knock it down. You carved this city out of bare earth, and you fight every day to protect it. You are the greatest earthbender who's ever lived, and I'm not going to let anyone forget it. Least of all, you."

She felt the flush burning in her cheeks, and knowing that Sokka would feel it too just made it worse. Toph swallowed hard. "But, Sokka–"

"But, nothing. You love Lin, don't you?"

"Of course."

"And she loves you. So you must be doing something right."

Toph sniffed and closed her eyes. Two fat, unbidden tears rolled down her cheeks, cutting tracks in the dirt. Gently, Sokka brushed them away. "Toph?"

"Shut up," she said thickly, scrubbing her face with her sleeve. "M'only crying 'cause I'm drunk."

Sokka smiled. "Of course," he said, and he leaned down to brush a kiss against the tip of her nose. Before he could pull away, Toph took hold of his face and pulled Sokka back to kiss him fiercely on the mouth.

"I hope that wasn't just because you're drunk," he said when they broke apart.

"No," Toph admitted with a grin. She kissed him again, more carefully this time, then added, "I guess my mother was right about one thing, though."

"What's that?" Sokka murmured against her neck.

"It wasn't too late for me to find a good man."


End file.
